Biden's in the White House: We're going to be Okay

 By Mildred Robertson

There is a Grimm’s Fairy Tale in which a young woman finds a pick axe in the ceiling of her wine cellar. The young woman laments the fact that were she to have a child whom she sent to the cellar to fetch wine, the axe might fall and kill the child. She and her entire family became distraught over the possibility. They simply missed the logic of removing the axe from the ceiling, thereby eliminating the danger.  Despite the numerous successes of the Biden Administration to date, many on both sides of the aisle continue to wait for the fall of the axe.

Biden seems to be of the opinion, it is better to simply pull the pick axe from the ceiling. He has ignored the incessant chatter of the media, and the constant GOP attacks. Rather than engage with either the media or the GOP in divisive political wrangling, Biden and his administration have focused on repairing the broken government he inherited. The Biden administration has begun to systematically shore up those areas weakened by Trump and his undisciplined, unprincipled, ineffective administration.   

Biden has pledged to Americans that “Help is on the Way,” and he has thus far been true to that pledge:

• President Joe Biden, sworn in on January 20, 2021, has assembled perhaps the most diverse array of cabinet nominees in history. As of March 10th, 16 of his cabinet-level nominees gained approval, despite Republican contentiousness. He lost his nominee for White House Budget, Chief Neera Tandem, based upon some innocuous tweets the GOP claimed to find offensive. Overall, however, his nominations are proceeding well.
• While the previous administration can be credited with the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, it fell far short of its goal of vaccinating 40 million by the end of December. Under the Biden Administration over 10% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated; averaging about 2 million vaccine doses administered per day. Biden anticipates the epidemic may be under control by July 4^th if Americans continue to strictly comply with CDC guidelines.
• On Thursday, March 11^th, President Biden signed a sweeping $1.9-trillion coronavirus relief package into law. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act creates a massive infusion of federal aid aimed primarily at working families. It provides fast and direct economic assistance for American workers, families, and small businesses, and preserves jobs for American industries.
• The $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund provides assistance for state, local, and tribal governments navigating the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
• States are able to extend unemployment benefits by up to 13 weeks under the new Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program. PEUC benefits are available for weeks of unemployment beginning after your state implements the new program and ending with weeks of unemployment ending on or before December 31, 2020.
• The COVID-19 support provides students 50% off the first-year tuition, which could equal approximately $6,000. In other words, a student could study for a full year for less than $6,000 without counting any other scholarships or grants they may be able to access.
• The Paycheck Protection Program is providing small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll, hire back employees who may have been laid off, and cover applicable overhead.
• Stimulus checks: The checks will be a maximum of $1,400 per individual, or $2,800 per married couple, plus $1,400 per dependent. Like past direct payments, this third round will be based on income. The income limits for those to receive the maximum amount will remain the same. Individuals who earn up to $75,000 in adjusted gross income, heads of household with up to $112,500, and married couples who file jointly with up to $150,000 will get the full $1,400 per person.

If you view these accomplishments, it is clear that Biden and his team are anything but fatalistic when they anticipate America’s future. Yet challenges still exist.

Still to be addressed are immigration, social justice, voting rights, pay equity and police reform. Every American should be able to walk the streets of America without fear of racial intimidation or violence. Our borders must be secured, but our policies must be humane and just. The minimum wage must be addressed so our workforce can be adequately compensated. Police need support, but the bad cops must be weeded out and discriminatory policing policies must be removed. States across the nation continue to write legislation to impede minority voting, so voting rights require a federal response.

All of these issues are pressing. This administration acknowledges the need for change in all these areas. But Biden is not like the young woman in the wine cellar. He does not just look up at the axe and lament. He has lifted his hand to pull the axe from the ceiling…one crisis at a time. Let’s give him the time and support he needs to remove the axe.

We are going to be okay.

N.C. Senator Censured For Impeachment Vote

By:  Mildred Robertson

It seems that the North Carolina Republican Party is at odds with the majority of American citizens when it comes to the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. Recent surveys show that 56% of Americans supported his conviction and nearly 60 percent of North Carolinians say the former president is either responsible or somewhat responsible for the violence at the US. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  However, only 11% of North Carolina Republicans share that opinion. So on February 15th the Party moved to censure Senator Burr, one of seven Republican Senators to vote to convict the former president who incited the January 6 riot that desecrated the U.S. Capitol building, claimed 6 lives and resulted in numerous injuries. 

As we watch the dissimilation of the Republication Party, it becomes apparent that the party's demise will also negatively impact the entire country. In a February 15 article published in the Greater Diversity Magazine, John E. Finn, Professor Emeritus of Government, Wesleyan University said, “In the end, a safe and healthy constitutional democracy depends upon elected public officials and an educated citizenry that values the principles and practices of constitutional democracy more than it values political power and partisan politics.”

It became clear in the last four years that many of our elected officials lack those values and principles referred to by Finn. Further, our citizenry has failed to pursue true understanding of our Constitution but rather have been seduced by conspiracy theorists and false leaders. There is no better evidence of this than the red states, North Carolina key among them, who have chosen to punish their representatives, rather than applaud their bravery for voting to impeach the 45th president of the United States.

And it is a matter of bravery. It is commonly agreed that, were the impeachment vote held by secret ballot, well more than the needed two-thirds majority would have cast their votes to convict. But our new reality is that the former president still has sway over an unhinged MAGA crowd which has demonstrated its proclivity for violence. Even if republican legislators did not have to fear physical violence to themselves and their families, there would remain the fear of the gerrymandered vote, where few republican candidates can survive the primary without the MAGA vote. 

During his tenure, I have seldom agreed with Richard Burr. His decision was made somewhat easier in that he had already planned his departure from the legislature. It took courage none-the-less, whatever his other motives. So I applaud him for doing what was right for North Carolina and the nation. But our nation stands in jeopardy as long as the former president is left unchecked and his seditionist followers remain unpunished. This is a heavy burden being borne by the Democrats and the Biden administration. It is my prayer that more elected officials will let go of fear and overcome partisanship and the pursuit of power to promote the true principles and practices of constitutional democracy. Again, Sen. Burr, I applaud you for being one of seven who had the courage to make that choice.   

 

North Carolina D.P.I. Ponders Adding Diversity and Inclusion To Curriculum

 By Mildred Robertson

There is a firestorm in North Carolina over the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s proposal to teach American history as it occurred rather than whitewashing it to show that our nation has always lived up to the lofty expectations set out in our constitution. It appears that teaching our students the truth about America’s founding, its slaughter of native Americans, its enslavement of Africans and its abuse of former slaves and other minorities is just too much for some in the state to bear.

DPI’s move to ensure diversity and inclusion in the standard K-12 curriculum is opposed by GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson who said Wednesday he has collected 27,000 signatures in an online petition calling on the state board to reject the new standards. Robinson, who is black, (More about him another time), said public education has become so anti-conservative that he has not been allowed to speak at schools while activities such as Black Lives Matter are promoted.

However, this is not an issue of conservative versus progressive; but rather an issue of fact over fiction. I recall when I was in middle school in Missouri when I had a heated disagreement with my history teacher over the inventor of the cotton gin. I was taught that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but in my individual studies, with prompting from my “woke” sisters, I had learned that slaves had invented many of the tools and practices that were attributed to their white owners. In my search for truth I found that Eli Whitney’s slaves invented the cotton gin. However, they were his chattel (not considered human therefore ineligible to file a patent). Their discoveries were attributed to him. He patented the cotton gin in 1794. Needless to say, when I stated as much on my test, my answer was marked wrong. She was incensed, even though I had provided her with proof that what she was teaching was incorrect.

That was more than 50 years ago, yet many white Americans still seem to struggle with the incongruence of history with perceived reality. Why is it so hard to state that America was a land stolen from its original owners and its economy built on the backs of enslaved people?  Why would such a statement be considered divisive?  Is it, perhaps, because this nation has yet to take the first step toward reconciliation with those that have been wronged—acknowledgement of guilt! 

We must teach our children the struggles this nation has endured in order to arrive at this place in history. We have to let them see what we did wrong, as well as what we did right.  How else can they be expected to make better decisions?

The American experiment is an awesome, somewhat successful one.  But it is not without flaws. Our country has brutalized many on its trek toward becoming the most powerful nation in the world.  Non-Europeans have borne the brunt of that brutality. But America has historically failed to admit the brutality and disparity that accompanied its progress.

Looking back toward slavery and its aftermath, forty acres and a mule would have been nice. But could those of you who wield the reigns of authority simply agree to those dark chapters of our nation’s history and codify methods to ensure that parity will be pursued in the future? Can we work toward building a nation where justice and equality are jealously safeguarded in our current social and political endeavors? Can we strive to see our past failures so they won’t be replicated in our future?

Can we simply teach our children the truth?

Donald Trump Impeached for Insurrection

By Mildred Robertson

Donald J. Trump has accomplished something no other president has ever achieved. On January 13, 2021 he became the only President of the United States to be impeached twice. On January 13 the U.S. House of Representatives deemed Trump a clear and present danger to our country by a bipartisan group of legislators.  Two hundred and twenty-two Democrats and 10 Republicans voted to impeach the 45^th president of the United States for leading a bloody rebellion^. .  The insurrection claimed the lives of six U.S. citizens and endangered the lives of the entire Congress and its staff.  The legislators found Trump guilty of inciting his followers to riot on January 6^th as the congress convened to certify Joe Biden as the 46^th president of the United States. The move comes amid warnings of extremist violence that may occur between now and inauguration at state capitols around the nation.

While the impeachment addresses Trump’s misdeeds, it does not address his radicalized constituents nor how they will react to his censure. While Trump did not create the hate that spilled into the halls of our Capitol on January 6^th, he has nurtured a violent political ideology inside the Republican Party and provided a safe haven for the hateful doctrine held by the mob that descended upon our Capital.

While Trump has orchestrated the coalition of hate groups that have become particularly active in the last 4 years, he is a symptom and not the cause. He has simply nurtured the racial animus motivating the racist far right extremist proliferating in America. He has assembled a group of aggrieved Americans who project their failures to a rapidly diversifying demographic on the left that dilutes the voices of the aggrieved.

America has descended in two distinct camps, “Team Sedition” or “Team Democracy.  Our challenge is not a matter of party, but a matter of conscience. There are those among us who believe that those who desecrated the seat of our democracy must be accountable. Others preach that we should forgive and focus on reunification.

While I agree that we must strive to be “One nation, under God,” in order to achieve unity, we must have accountability. Those who would destroy our union cannot be given a free pass. They must repent for their sedition, and pay the price. Only then can they be welcomed back to full citizenship.

Clearly, there is no strength in a nation divided.  But a key component of a strong democracy is accountability.  Until we have addressed the foundation of the hate and violence unleashed upon our nation on January 6^th by Donald Trump and his minions, we cannot move forward. Until we have held responsible those who incited and carried out the heinous acts of sedition that occurred in our state capital, this nation cannot heal.

First comes repentance—then comes forgiveness. Then, perhaps, we can move toward unity.

FAILED PRESIDENT INCITES INSURGENTS: Threatens Egalitarian Rule

 By Mildred Robertson

The 45^th President has experienced a year filled with failure. He failed to repeal Obamacare. He failed to build his wall. He failed to win re-election, losing to Joe Biden in a crushing campaign that mirrored the numbers by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. His efforts to have courts across the nation reverse his defeat have been utterly futile; including his petition to the Supreme Court. His party lost the two contested seats to the Senate which resulted in an historic shift of power in Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats. Following all this failure, he has finally experienced success. He has successfully incited his followers to riot, attacking our democracy and desecrating the halls of the United States Capital…“the People’s House.”  

Trump led an insurrection of thousands of misled devotees that he himself referred to as a “wild rally.” He and his acolytes ravaged our democracy and trampled our most sacred right to government “for the people, by the people.” This drove of insurgents breached the walls of our Capital Building, wandered the halls, and trashed the Chamber, leaving America bruised and battered; and apparently subject to little or no rule of law. Trump himself instructed this mob to march to the Capitol and fight to stop the certification of Joe Biden as the duly elected president of the United States.

It was with great turpitude that we witnessed the halls of the people’s house with tear gas billowing through the Rotunda; congress members crouched under their desks and armed capital police barricading the Chamber doors. Trump and his Republican cronies have muddied our image on the world stage, and have all but brought this nation to its knees.

With malice and forethought, the 45^th president of the United States suborned sedition in order to overturn election results hailed as the most secure in this nation’s history. He released a mob of thugs on our congress in the midst of their certification of the 2020 election results submitted to confirm votes cast in states across the union.

All that being said…what next? What do we do with a malicious and possibly mentally unstable president still wielding the reigns of power? The next 10 to 12 twelve days are perhaps the most perilous this country has faced since 911 when the twin towers fell.  He has already shown us that he will stop at nothing to hold on to power. We know that he will do anything to avoid the appearance of being a loser. He has let us know that he values neither this nation nor his followers whom he gleefully sent on a fool’s errand that resulted in death, destruction, and legal jeopardy for thousands. So what must we do in the final days of this caustic presidency?

Our options are few, and none are simple. It would be wonderful were Mike Pence and the senior cabinet to acknowledge that our nation is in jeopardy and invoke the 25^th Amendment. Unfortunately, Pence and senior staff seem to have as little strength or integrity as the president himself, so it is unlikely that they will embark upon this path. Congress can impeach him again and eliminate him as a future threat to the union, but that would require the cooperation of a Republican Party that has failed to hold this president to account for numerous illegal, immoral, and perhaps treasonous acts over the past 4 years. While Trump has clearly crossed the line for many in his party, a huge number of them are still held hostage in a destructive death cycle as he attempts to hold on to the favored status of white males in American politics and society at large.

The American public is desperate for a solution. We are thirsty for reasoned leadership, political dignity, the rule of law, and most of all the assurance that a steady hand holds the helm of our nation’s future. We are days away from the moment when we will move from a rudderless nation casting about at sea to one with a common cause directing us toward a shared destiny in keeping with the vision of the Founding Fathers.

There is, however, no assurance that we will arrive at our destination intact; or for that matter, at all. In the storied words of Founding Father Patrick Henry, “Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country.” All Americans must lay aside our petty differences and focus on maintaining our democracy, flawed though it may be. While our nation has often fallen far short of the lofty goals to which we subscribe, we nevertheless are the preeminent democracy established in the world to date. We cannot let this evil, petty man and his acolytes destroy that legacy. 

All great societies fall, but now is not our time! Will we rise up to the lofty aspirations of our forefathers, or will we let this tiny man with his outsized ambition make us another of his colossal failures?

The answer to that question remains to be seen.

 

Vice President Pence, Invoke the 25th Amendment

By Mildred Robertson

America is currently trapped in a conundrum as it awaits a response from the president to legislation needed to stabilize our economy, address our health-care crisis and fund vital government services, both military and domestic. As the nation suffers under the indifference of its Commander-in-Chief, it has become obvious that Vice President Pence must discharge his constitutional duty and invoke the 25^th Amendment in order to break the log jammed legislation lying on the President’s desk at Mar-A-Largo. Section 4 of that amendment states that when a president is unable to fulfill his constitutional duties, but will not step aside, that the Vice President and a majority of either the Cabinet or a body designated by Congress may declare that the President is “Unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”  

There has been much discussion as to Trump’s psychological state, and whether his mental health is a factor in the manner in which he has governed. Over the past 4 years we have suffered under his leadership much as a child subjected to the whims of a schizophrenic parent. As we await his signature on legislation required to keep the government open and address other pressing governmental needs, many in the government and the media wring their hands, wondering how he will respond.

He has tied the hands of Congress due to his refusal to either veto the Covid-19 legislation lying on his desk or sign it. But whether his failure to carry out his constitutional duties is based on mental deficiency or simple mean-spiritedness, it is clear that his intent is to stymie both Republicans and Democrats in their quest to address a dire public need in order to assuage his wounded ego. Without his action, Congress can neither move forward to over-ride his veto or submit a revised bill that meets his specifications. If he refuses to act, that legislation will have to wait until the new administration takes office January 20, 2021.

But the American people don’t have that kind of time.

Trump, it seems, is oblivious to the consequences of his failure to act on the lives of countless Americans facing eviction, the end of unemployment payments, food shortages, job loss and for many…death. His failure to act encumbers funding for Covid-19 treatment which will impede the production and distribution of life-saving vaccinations and will negate the $600 stipend intended to help Americans struggling with lay-offs and job loss. So he is indifferent to the crises Americans face as he wastes precious time on political posturing and adolescent temper tantrums.

This president poses a clear and present danger to the welfare of our nation. He has tested every lever the Founders created to safeguard us from despots and their tyranny. Thus far we have survived with a democracy that is tattered, yet still somewhat intact. But we now teeter on the brink. We must not, at this final hour of his administration, allow him to bring democracy to its knees.

Vice President Pence must do what he has not done during his entire tenure as Vice President. He must make a stand. It is clear that Trump is either unable or unwilling to carry out the duties necessary to maintain the health and well-being of this nation. He represents a clear and present danger to our union.

Vice President Pence must invoke the 25^th Amendment and release this nation from the clutches of a madman who does not value our democracy, and scoffs at the most fundamental tenets of our freedom.  He must invoke the 25^th Amendment, declaring Trump unfit for office. His failure to do so will result in irrevocable harm to our national security and more lives lost unnecessarily. His decision on this matter will dictate whether he will be a historical footnote in the Trump administration or be remembered as a patriot who stood for Democracy 

Dark Forces Threaten American Democracy

By: Mildred Robertson

As record numbers of citizens exercise their right to vote in the 2020 Election, dark forces are moving across our country to dampen those patriotic impulses. From armed militias plotting to intimidate voters at the polls to a Trump caravan accosting a democratic campaign bus in Texas, this year’s presidential election harkens back to the early days of the Civil Rights movement. During that period, African Americans were threatened with guns, dogs, nooses and water hoses to prevent them from casting their ballots. It appears that today, many citizens, black and white alike, may face great personal peril as they cast their vote in the November 3^rd election.

In Alamance County in North Carolina, a “Souls to the Polls” march to take advantage of the last day to early vote in that state resulted in an attack by the police…police who were supposed to be providing security for the marchers. According to the NAACP, which organized the march, the group had appropriate permits to march, and had shared their plans with the local police prior to the event. It appears when the group paused for 9 minutes to honor the memory of George Floyd, they were ordered out of the street, and were then set upon by local police with tear gas. Among those gassed were invalids and children.

Meanwhile, the current administration is lobbying the courts to suppress votes, by eliminating all that do not arrive by Tuesday, November 3^rd, regardless of when they were mailed. This could disenfranchise millions. In Harris County Texas more than 120,000 voters who participated in drive-through voting are in danger of having their votes invalidated. While the Texas Supreme Court rejected the request to hear the Republican case, a Federal court will take up the ruling on Monday to decide whether those votes will be counted. Drive through ballots represent 10 percent of the votes cast in that state.

Today it feels as though time has actually gone backward. But on Tuesday, November 3^rd America has the opportunity to reset the clock. We must we vote. We must encourage our friends and neighbors to vote.

The dark forces whose goal it is to dim this nation’s light can only succeed if we let it. But we can lift our collective voices and reject the darkness. We can move toward the light. We can reclaim the soul of this nation.

Vote as if your life depends on it…because it does.

#soulstothepolls #NAACP #AlamanceCounty #VoterSuppression #Policebrutality #Vote2020